


The Arc of Ascension, Fragment e13,5: you're right about that

by bzarcher, solarbird



Series: Of Gods and Monsters [68]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Arguing, Background Femslash, Background Relationships, Determination, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, Dissociation, Ecopoint: Antarctica, Engineering, F/M, Female Friendship, Genetically Engineered Beings, Long-Distance Relationship, Oasis (Overwatch), Old Friends, Other, Playing with Physics, Playing with Spacetime, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Recovery, Relationship Advice, Survival, The Stage is Set
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-08-29 17:35:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16748539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bzarcher/pseuds/bzarcher, https://archiveofourown.org/users/solarbird/pseuds/solarbird
Summary: The new gods have risen, ready to grapple with a world of heroes. Moira O'Deorain herself has been reborn, now made one of the creations her previous self meant to rule, and she works with her wife - the goddess Mercy - and their ensemble of new deities to remake the world, toimproveit... for everyone.A vignette - Mei-Ling, and Lena; Mei-Ling, and Hanzo; Mei-Ling, and Snowball, and Jack Morrison, before, and after, becoming a goddesses of Oasis.Of Gods and Monsters: The Arc of Ascensionis a continuance ofOf Gods and Monsters: The Arc of CreationandThe Armourer and the Living Weapon. It will be told in a series of eddas, sagas, interludes, fragments, texts, and cantos, all of which serve their individual purposes. To follow it as it appears,please subscribe to the series.





	The Arc of Ascension, Fragment e13,5: you're right about that

_[Mid-August, 2079]_

Mei sat on the side of the guest bed in Lena's apartment, Snowball sleeping on the small charging station on the dresser. She'd insisted on one night in Oasis, before, to think it all over again, one last time. After all - it wasn't something that could be undone.

Angela had offered her an apartment, but she'd turned it down. "I have one already," she'd said. "At China Sea." And so, another night at Lena and Emily and Danielle's, this time, under better circumstances.

"You sure you don't want to call Hanzo?" Lena asked, dinner put away, Emily and Danielle off in their little private spaces, working on their own hobbies, before bed.

Mei shook her head, no. "We'd just fight again. When he gets like this... unless you have a _lot_ more time to argue, it's best that you just do whatever you're going to do. Once something is a fact, he'll reconsider, but until then... it's like moving a glacier."

Lena laughed a little, but with a wry twist to it. "Sounds like a bit of a problem, t'me."

The climatologist smirked. "It is. But I am very patient, and we work around it, most of the time. Not having so much PTSD will help me do that better."

Lena smiled, widely, leaning back against the chair. "Got that right. I never knew how much it affected me 'til I didn't have it anymore."

"You still get sad, though."

"You will, too," she confirmed. "And it's not like y'won't remember Antarctica. It'll all still be there. Just... removed back, a bit."

"Moira told me - you had the Slipstream abstracted back really far."

"Yep!" Lena nodded. "I can think about it all I want to, now. I've noticed a lot of interestin' stuff in it, too. Now that I've got so much more control, I've even been pokin' at it a bit, now that it's..." she grinned. "Well, shouldn't say 'safe,' but 'safer than bein' a test pilot.'"

"But not London."

And just like that, Lena was sad, and took a heartbeat to answer. "Yeh. Not London, not really. A little. Enough to... keep goin'... but no more."

"Why? Why one, and not the other?"

Lena didn't have to think about this, she'd thought about it a lot already.

"'Cause the Slipstream... that was somethin' that happened _to_ me."

Mei peered, head tilted just a little, looking thoughtful.

"London... that was somethin' I _did_."

Lena shook her head, slowly, remembering - as she wouldn't let herself forget - that horrible moment of betrayal on Winston's face, and shuddered, just a little.

"Pushin' that off... just wouldn't be right."

Mei nodded, thinking of the decisions she'd made, back at Gibraltar, and other decisions she'd made, about her Changes, the week before.

"I understand."

_[Late September, 2079]_

Mei didn't look so very different. That was the first thing Hanzo had said. Her sapphire eyes had the intensity that all the gods shared, but she still wore glasses, now with flat lenses - protective goggles for the lab, more than anything else - and it helped.

And she just liked them. She knew Hanzo did, too.

He was wary, of course. She apologised for cutting him off mid-call, for being so desperate, so exhausted, that she couldn't even explain why it had to happen. He did not apologise for his worries, but did, for how he expressed them.

Michael had kept him updated about her condition - she'd listed him as her emergency contact - and he'd followed the daily reports closely, working to understand as much as he could.

The two verbally paced each other, cautious, like cats who had been friends but then kept apart long enough to be unsure. She explained how she still remembered what happened in Antarctica, and that she still deeply missed her lost friends, but she no longer _lived there_ , and that mattered. He explained, in turn, how he worried that would change her in more ways than she knew, how critical events - even bad ones - mattered so much in shaping who someone is, and that growth more often than not came from pain.

In the end, they did not entirely find agreement, but they disagreed with some fair share of kindness, and she invited him down to the ecopoint, after Russia, and he accepted, and she was happy he'd been willing to try that much, and he was happy she'd chosen reasonably neutral ground.

She said she still loved him, and he said he still loved her, and she said he was still a shǎ zi, but they both laughed about it, and agreed that some way, somehow, they would try to make it work.

Afterwards, he felt surprised at how little different she seemed, really. Happier, clearly. Less fragile. Less afraid. But - so far - still very much who she had been, even if he still feared for her, and what might yet come.

And afterwards, she felt more than ready to try, even if it meant so many bridges might have to be rebuilt. Perhaps differently, this time. Perhaps better.

She patted Snowball on the head, feeling just a little bit reassured, a little more like herself, but like she always did, now. _It's okay_ , she thought. _You've got this. You won't fall over. You'll be fine._ And she knew it was true, but she liked the reminder.

 _Emily is **so** clever_, she thought, turning back to the display hanging in the air in front of her.

"So," Jack said, calmly, but a little sad. "Hanzo says you're still you."

"I think so!" Mei giggled. "I would be very bad at being anyone else."

Jack allowed a little heh, a little hint of a laugh, before replying. "But... now you're like them."

"I suppose so," she said, smiling back at her former commander, from her office in the dome. "But I feel great! I'm back home, at China Sea, and back to work." The smile went a little soft. "And I know I won't fall, now. Not again."

"What you really mean, now, is that you know you'll do whatever needs to be done - whatever the cost - if you decide it needs to happen." He hadn't been shy about his analysis of the gods, and Mei had listened, when he'd explained.

"No, Jack," the doctor said, shaking her head back and forth, sighing a little. "It's kind of funny. You... trying to talk me out of it... it mostly made me think I _should_ do it."

Morrison's eyebrows furrowed, and Mei continued, explaining.

"I've _always_ been like that. That's who I was, already. That's... that's the only way I could survive Antarctica. It's why I..." She swallowed. "It's why I was willing to do what I did... when Moira first came to us. It's why I was willing to risk... why I was willing to _sacrifice_ Lena, to save the world."

She reached over, looking a little sad, and pet Snowball again, who chirped happily. "What hurt was having to do it to someone else, instead of myself."

This truth, the Strike Commander knew, and understood, all too well. After a moment, he gave her a somber tip of his head. "The burden - the loneliness - of command, is knowing you might have to do something like that. That sometimes... you just can't do it yourself. It has to be others, and they're the ones who'll pay."

The climatologist set her face, and nodded, a model of determination.

"But you're right," she said. "If something _needs_ to be done... I _will_ do it. But you're wrong, in that... I haven't been made like them."

She smiled.

"They've been made like _me._ "

**Author's Note:**

> This is the thirty-eighth instalment of _Of Gods and Monsters: The Arc of Ascension_. To follow this story, [subscribe to the series via this link](https://archiveofourown.org/series/972024), rather than to the individual works.


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